22 January 2016

The 1st of Cathay Pacific's new Airbus A350 jets is expected
to take wing in March (could probably be delayed to April), with new design
seats fitted from tip to tail.

Each of the airline's 20 A350-900 jets will carry 280
passengers split between business class, premium economy and economy.

Cathay will be the operator with lowest passenger capacity and with 3-class
interior (Qatar has 283 seats with 2-class cabin).

Source: Australian Business Traveller.

38 business class
seats will take pride of place at the pointy end of Cathay's A350.

They'll be based on the airline's current highly-regarded
business class and in the same 1-2-1 layout – but with an updated design which
CX is carefully positioning as a 'refresh' to improve the existing seat, based
on extensive passenger surveys and in-person workshops.

Travellers can expect to see improvements in storage space
(one of the items delayed in the FAL), the ability to slide the meal table
forward and back, and a degree of tilt for the large HD video screen.

There's also a compact premium economycabin of 28 seats in a 2-4-2 arrangement.

This will sport an all-new design with a padded swing-up
legrest be built into every seat.

There's also
tipped to be a little more legroom due to a slightly greater distance between
each row of seats.

Cathay has
also added a handy 'tablet tray' beneath each seat's inbuilt screen onto which
passengers can perch a tablet or even a large-screen smartphone for watching
BYO inflight video.

Source: Jujug Spotting

The rest of
Cathay Pacific's A350 will be given over to 214 new economy seats ranked in a 3-3-3 grid, which also boast a
similar tablet/smartphone ledge below their larger video screens.

The Airbus
A350 will also be fitted with inflight Internet, which is a first for Cathay
Pacific's international fleet and an overdue catch-up to competitors such as Singapore
Airlines, Emirates and Etihad.

21 January 2016

Some Chinese companies
leaded by Han´s Laser are purchasing the Spanish supplier Aritex, specialized
on assembly lines and automated tooling and equipments.

Aritex (and Loxin) is part
of a Spanish company Comsa linked to construction and which is divesting within
its commitment with banks to reduce debt.

The Chinese company Han´s
Laser (along with a few partners) plans to buy, through Hong Kong SPV, the 95%
of Aritex Cading.

The operation will round 50
million euros and the Chinese company will absorb the current debt of Aritex.

Aritex, with headquarters in
Badalona (Spain) is working for Airbus, Boeing, Comac and other aerospace
companies with facilities and offices in USA (Seattle and Wichita), Mexico
(Puebla), Brazil (Sao Paulo), Germany (Heilbronn) and China (Shanghai).

Within the A350 XWB program
scope, Aritex is the supplier that has developed and installed the following
projects for Airbus:

Vertical Tail Plane (VTP)
assembly line at Stade and Horizontal Tail Plane (HTP) assembly line at Puerto
Real. The workstation and tool unit allows the correct assembly of the VTP or
the HTP from the start to the end of the process.

Wing Stringer Production and
Positioning Cell at Illescas. Fully automated cell for the integration of
stringers for wings (left and right) of the A350.

Double assembly line for the
Keel Beam of the A350XWB at Nantes. These bivalent design lines allow the
assembly of the two versions of the product (-900 and -1000). The lines combine
different vertical, horizontal and subassembly stations, which enables
optimization of the necessary useful space.

Based on the article “Una
empresa china planea la compra de Aritex a Comsa por 50 millones” published in
Expansion.

14 January 2016

The airline has ordered 12 A350-1000s, with six
A350s to be obtained directly from Airbus or through lessors.

The airline will not confirm the deal, but it is
understood that company staff were told of the plan on 12/Jan.

Source: airliners.net

“We are currently evaluating our future leisure fleet
requirements to ensure that any new aircraft we introduce will provide the best
possible outcome for our customers and our business,” Virgin Atlantic said in a
statement.

“We will make an announcement once we have completed this
process and can confirm a decision,” it added.

Airbus also would not comment on the deal.

Virgin Atlantic plans to use the A350s to replace its
fleet of Boeing 747-400s, which operate on
leisure routes to U.S. and Caribbean holiday destinations from London and U.K.
regional airports.

The 747s are due to exit the fleet before 2020.

The airline is in the process of replacing its Airbus A340-300 and A340-600 fleets with the Airbus A330-300 and the Boeing 787-9.

Based on the article “Virgin Atlantic Orders A350-1000s”
published in Aviation Daily.

13 January 2016

Airbus has cast doubt on the pace of recovery at French
cabin equipment supplier Zodiac Aerospace, saying the company was still
"in the ditch" despite repeated pledges to resolve output delays.

Source: Eric Piermont

The comments came in a rare public warning from Airbus
CEO Fabrice Bregier, who accused Zodiac's management of being "in
denial" as it waded through repeated delays and profit warnings related to
seat production last year.

Bregier told an annual news conference he expected
improvements from Zodiac this year after the plane maker "suffered a
lot" in 2015, including missing a target for A350 deliveries due to delays
in receiving toilets made by Zodiac.

Reflecting Airbus concerns that Zodiac needed to focus on
its existing order book, Bregier took the unusual step of announcing that it
had been removed as a supplier on the A330neo.

He said the company wanted suppliers that "do the
job" and while this was the case for 99%, there were occasionally some
which failed to live up to this.

"Last year it was clearly Zodiac," Bregier said.

"We expect they will manage to do a lot better this
year, especially as A350 deliveries are linked to their performance on
lavatories and seats."

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On May/2014 I started tweeting the posts (via @A350Blog) with almost 1000 followers.In 2016 I will continue writting posts with only-official news about the A350 XWB. Perhaps there will be no daily posts but daily tweets at @A350BlogThanks again for your patience and comments.